Chapter 3. Security Vulnerabilities

Caveat emptor.(Let the buyer beware.)

THIS CHAPTER CONSIDERS security vulnerabilities. It examines some of the characteristic system flaws that can be exploited. It also discusses a few remarkable cases of system flaws. Chapter 5 presents specific examples of cases in which such vulnerabilities have been exploited or have otherwise caused problems.

The informal definition of security given in Section 1.1 implies freedom from undesirable events, including malicious and accidental misuse. In the computer sense, undesirable events might also include the results of hardware malfunctions. In this natural usage, security would be an all-inclusive term spanning many computer-system risks. In common technical usage, ...

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